Darja miscellaneous notes 2025

Every time I go to Algeria, I come back with some linguistic observations that are new to me (if not necessarily to anyone else.) Here are this year's.

Many collective nouns take plural agreement: sqit əššjəṛ əttəħtaniyyin “I irrigated the lower trees”, kanu sjəṛ “there were trees”, ənnməl haðu “these ants”. Not all do, though, or at least not all the time: nnamus bəkri kʊnna nšufuh nəqqʊtluh “mosquitoes, in the old days, if we saw them (lit. it) we’d kill them (lit. it).” A topic worth looking at in more detail.

“Have”-based expressions for “ago” are familiar from Romance languages; in Darja, however, they agree with the notional possessor, e.g. dərtu ma-ʕəndi-š bəzzaf ‘I did it not long ago’ (lit. “I did it I don’t have much”). Along similar lines, the subject of ʕla bal-i “I know” (originally “on my awareness”) was originally the theme, the fact known. Synchronically, however, utterances like ma-kʊnt-š ʕlabal-i “I didn’t know” (lit. “I was not I know”) suggest this is no longer the case.

Another example of næ̃mpoṛt (discussed here previously): u xəllih yakʊl næ̃mpoṛt ħaja ‘and let him eat anything’.

The construct state has undergone some interesting developments. Most masculine nouns have no distinct construct state, and most feminine nouns form a construct state by replacing -a with -ət. If we factor out, for the present, the stem-internal effects of schwa-zero alternations and compensatory gemination, then, for most nouns, we can speak of a single construct state used for head nouns followed by possessor NPs or by suffixed possessor pronouns alike. However, a few nouns show a different distribution. Several kinship terms in -a take the suffixes directly: yəmma-k ‘your mother’, baba-k ‘your father’, jədda-k ‘your grandmother’, even ṭaṭa-k ‘your auntie’. (These nouns have zero-marked 1Sg possession: yəmma u yəmma-k “my and your mother”.) Such nouns usually take clitic doubled possessives (yəmma-ha ntaʕ Baya ‘Baya’s mother’, lit. ‘her mother of Baya’); however, if used in the regular synthetic possessive (“iḍāfah”) construction, they take a suffix t, e.g. yəmma-t yəmma-k “your mother’s mother”. For these nouns, it seems tempting to postulate two construct states rather than one.

The noun pattern CəCCayC is not particularly productive, but I heard a new example: tərtayqat “firecrackers” (cf. tərtəq “pop”). Other examples include ħərrayqa “jellyfish” (ħrəq “burn”), xʊṭṭayəf “swallow (bird)” (xṭəf “snatch”), bu-zəllayəq “blenny (fish)” (zləq “slip”).

Feminine nouns without overt feminine marking form diminutives with overt feminine marking: yədd ‘hand’ > ydida ‘little hand’. Very few masculine nouns have apparent feminine marking, but x(a)lifa ‘caliph’ is one such; məskin əlxliyyəf haðak “poor little caliph!” shows that the converse is also true, i.e. that masculine nouns with apparent feminine marking form diminutives without it.

The verbal template CəCCəC is in generally semantically and syntactically distinct ftom its corresponding passive/middle tCəCCəC. However, the distinction is neutralised in the participles: mwəð̣ð̣i “washed for prayer” from twəð̣ð̣a, mkəṛməṣ “dried (of figs)” from tkəṛməṣ “dry (of figs, intr.)”. Some speakers, however, do say mətwəð̣ð̣i.

Passives in n usually involve a simple coda n, but I heard clear gemination in li baš yənnəqsəm ‘for it to be divided’. The question of gemination in triliteral passives would deserve a closer look.

Weak-final triliteral verbs tend to add -an- in verbal nouns: tənħaniyya “removal” from nəħħi “remove”.’

A few emotional idioms: bərrəd qəlb-u “he cooled his heart”, i.e. he satisfied his heart’s desire; ṭəyyəṛhali “he made it fly for me”, i.e. he made me lose my temper; ṭəḷḷəʕlu lgaz “he raised the gas for him”, i.e. he made him angry. A proverb: triq əlʕafya tənẓaṛ yalukan tkun bʕida “the road of safety gets visited even if it’s far away.”

The usual ‘whatchamacallit’-word in Dellys and elsewhere in Algeria is laxʊṛ, originally “the other one”, used to substitute for verbs as well as nouns. However, from a relative about 90 years old, I heard a different construction based on haðak “that”: ma-yhaðak-š “he doesn’t whatsit”. This is paralleled in Malta and Morocco, so presumably it used to be more widely used.

The usual word for “knife” in Dellys is mus, but xʊdmi (usual in Bechar) is also in use. However, I hadn’t previously heard xʊdmiša. The curious final š can perhaps be explained as a borrowing from Berber, in some varieties of which ṯaxʷəḏmiyṯ would regularly yield ṯaxʷəḏmišṯ.

French cinquante is often heard as sikõnt “fifty”. The vowel is difficult to explain – influence from another Romance language?

Some words new to me: gərziz “empty gum, empty tooth socket”; ma-ksan-š “he’d rather not”; ṣfiħa “horseshoe”.

The ʕ in the verb ‘give’ is often elided: aṭini “give me” for regular aʕṭini.

I don’t think triliteral verbs ever end in w, but quadriliterals may: yqəwqəw ‘(a chicken) cackles’ (usually yqaqi in Dellys), yčəwčwu ‘they chatter’.